


Daisies

by RileyC



Category: Batman - All Media Types, Superman - All Media Types, World's Finest - Fandom
Genre: Domestic Fluff, Established Relationship, Gen, M/M, Memories, Mother's Day, The Infamous Cruise Is Referenced Once Again
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-17
Updated: 2017-05-17
Packaged: 2018-11-01 23:03:53
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,151
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10931865
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/RileyC/pseuds/RileyC
Summary: Alfred keeps a memory for Bruce; Damian shares it; Clark helps him make new ones...





	Daisies

**Author's Note:**

> **ETA: Clark's confusion in how to address Bruce's mom has been cleared up. Sorry about that.**

**I.** _Past_

****

 

Alfred Pennyworth fished the gift box out of the trash. It was a rather bold red, secured with a pink polka dot ribbon. There was to have been a daisy, Mrs. Wayne’s favorite, pushed through the ribbon along with a card when Master Bruce presented it to her this morning.

 

Afterward there was to be brunch at the club with Dr. Wayne, followed by an afternoon at the ballpark, “So Martha can watch her damn Knights,” Dr. Wayne, lifelong Yankees fan, had mock-grumbled, well within earshot of the lady.

 

“Hah!” Mrs. Wayne had returned. “You just watch, this is our year,” she declared. “Bet you anything.”

 

“Oh?” Dr. Wayne had looked at her with interest. “What will you bet?”

 

“The moon and the stars.”

 

“Hmm, nope, no good. I’ve got those already,” Dr. Wayne had said as he’d taken Mrs. Wayne into his arms.

 

Alfred had discreetly withdrawn.

 

He sighed now, thinking of all the plans that had been made, everything that would never be now.

 

He undid the ribbon and lifted the lid, shook his head with sorrow at the treasure nestled against a bed of cotton stuffing. Although he had helped tie the ribbon Alfred had not been witness to the gift young Master Bruce had placed within. Now he understood where that bottle of glue had gone, not to mention the smell of fresh paint that had puzzled the household a few days ago.

 

It was a picture frame, painted sea foam green, or as near as made no difference. Seashells had been glued around the frame with precision. A more precise brush had been used to add miniature starfish and an approximation of a coral reef, complete with octopus, down at the bottom, and a flourish of _To Mother_ at the top. If the artist’s skill was a bit unrefined, Alfred had no doubt Mrs. Wayne would have perceived no imperfections, and would have counted it among her treasures indeed.

 

The picture it framed was from a tropical holiday the family had enjoyed this past winter. After a busy day on the beach spent recreating Wayne Manor as a sandcastle--”We don’t have a moat, darling--or a drawbridge.” “A gross oversight.”--the family were posed with their fantastical creation, smiling as broadly as though they had unearthed the remains of fabled Atlantis.

 

Alfred understood why Master Bruce had thrown this away. He’d want it someday, though, when the pain had ebbed and memories would be welcome.

 

He’d keep it for him until then.

 

 **II.** _Present_

__

“That’s Grandmother?” Damian took the old picture frame back from Bruce, examining the image preserved there forever in Kodachrome.

 

Damian had seen photos of his grandparents, to say nothing of their portrait, but those were all formal and a bit remote. Vacation snaps were something else entirely, and Bruce suspected that was the fascination for Damian. He could remember going through a photo album and being shocked at how young his parents were in those old snapshots and the bizarre things they were wearing. His mother in miniskirts and go-go boots? His father in bell bottoms and a Nehru jacket? Young minds were easily boggled by things like that.

 

Maybe it was time to haul out those old albums again? Always assuming Damian hadn’t already unearthed them in his excursions through the mansion.

 

“That’s her,” Bruce confirmed. He hadn’t seen this picture frame in, well, forever. He would have sworn he’d thrown it away, in fact. Didn’t take the world’s greatest detective to work out who must have found it and kept it all these years. “Where did you find it?”

 

“In a box in the attic.” Damian turned the frame this way and that, casting a sideways look at Bruce every now and then, as though comparing himself to the image of Bruce in the photograph.

 

Bruce spread cream cheese over a toasted bagel.“Was the box locked?”

 

“Not really.”

 

Which no doubt meant that while a padlock may have been in place it had presented a piffling challenge.

 

“Did you make the frame?”

 

“I painted it and glued on the seashells.”

 

Damian ran a thumb over a clam shell. “And it was a present?”

 

Bruce nodded, sipped his coffee, part of him hoping the questions would stop. Of course they didn’t.

 

“Did she like it?”

 

Elbows propped on the table, Bruce rested his chin on his hands and tracked Alfred’s progress as he appeared with Damian’s waffles. “I never found out.”

 

Damian gave him a curious look, glanced at Alfred and seemed to gather something there. Understanding glimmered in his eyes at any rate. “Oh,” was all he said. He set the frame down and concentrated on his waffles.

 

Bruce sighed, caught Alfred’s eye, tried to interpret the silent message Alfred was sending him. “It’s okay to talk about it,” he said after a moment. Getting the words out hadn’t even been difficult. Maybe the old wounds had begun to heal. Not ripping them open again every five minutes probably helped. “I think she would have liked it.”

 

“I’ve no doubt at all,” said Alfred, quick with a napkin when Damian started to dribble syrup on the tablecloth. He was still trying to telegraph something to Bruce. “Mothers are like that.”

 

Attention still fixed on the waffles, Damian asked, “All mothers?”

 

A bell went off for Bruce then. Good thing, too: Alfred might have started in on semaphores next. “I’m not sure about all mothers,” he began carefully, venturing further at Alfred’s encouraging look, “but I do think most of them get a kick out of any homemade gift from their children.” Granted, he had a hard time picturing Talia gushing over a Popsicle birdhouse. Still, she had been known to surprise him. And knowing Damian, it wouldn’t be a birdhouse anyway.

 

Gaze locked on the waffles again, Damian nodded. He picked up the picture frame again, considered the old photo. “Maybe we could visit her.”

 

Bruce nodded. “We can do that. Shall we take her flowers? She always liked daisies…”

 

****

****III.** ** __Later_ _

__

“Alfred said I’d find you here.”

 

Ah: So that’s what that _whoosh_ was awhile back. Bruce shifted a bit as Clark sat down beside him in the grass. “Thought you’d be in Smallville today.”

 

“I was. Now I’m here.”

 

“Hhn.” His fingers plucked restlessly at fresh, green shoots of grass as he watched Clark pick up the bouquet he and Damian had brought to the grave. It was a gaudier mix than Bruce might have picked out on his own, pink and white daisies jostling with yellow and blue primroses. He thought Damian’s grandmother would approve, however.

 

“You okay?”

 

Bruce breathed out, nodded. “I am, actually.”

 

“Maybe someday that won’t surprise you.”

 

He gave sideways look at Clark, sitting there and watching him so seriously, a hint of concern in those blue eyes, and smiled. “Maybe.”

 

Clark set the bouquet back down and nudged his shoulder against Bruce’s. “Should anyone be concerned that Damian’s working out how to make a crossbow with Popsicle sticks?”

 

Bruce’s lips twitched with another smile. “Probably not.”

 

“Okay. Thought I’d check.”

 

It was a beautiful Sunday. Starting to grow cool now, late in the afternoon, but with no hint of the rain forecasters had predicted. A good day to share memories. A good day to make them?

 

Clark nudged him again. Bruce turned a grumpy look on him. “What?”

 

“Introduce me.” Clark jerked his chin at the graves.

 

Bruce stared at him. “Introduce you?”

 

“Umm hmm.”

 

Bruce shook his head, rolled his eyes, humored the lunatic. “Mother, Father, this is Clark Kent. He’s a dork.”

 

Clark rolled _his_ eyes. “And…?” he prodded, mobile eyebrows trying to convey something more.

 

“And we work together sometimes.”

 

Clark gave him a hard stare. As there was no glimmer of red, Bruce wasn’t worried. “It’s okay,” Clark said in a confidential way, addressing the graves. “He’s sensitive sometimes. The first time I saw him all dressed up I teased him a little bit and he was a long time getting over that.”

 

“That had nothing to do with being sensitive,” Bruce grumbled. “You pinged my ears and said they were cute.”

 

“Well, they were.”

 

Bruce didn’t know why he wasted time glowering at him. It never made an impression.

 

“I guess you could say we got off on a little bit of a wrong foot,” Clark was continuing. “But it worked out in the end. He’s my best friend now. Well, that’s not quite true, actually. We’re engaged to be married. I hope you and your husband approve, Mrs. Wayne. I love him a lot, even if he is the grumpiest thing that ever grumped.”

 

Bruce snorted.

 

Clark carried on. “Has he ever told you how it happened? I bet he hasn’t. Well, there was this cruise and he’d found out the Riddler was planning something. The only way to stop him, according to your son,” Clark looked at him, so much radiance in his smile Bruce had to turn away, “was for the two of us to go on the cruise undercover. Guess what our cover was?” Clark reached over and caressed the nape of his neck. “You never will. I couldn’t have. He decided the only way to catch the Riddler was for us to pose as a honeymooning couple.” He paused, nodded as though listening to a a reply. “No, it didn’t make a lot of sense to me, either, Mrs. Wayne, especially when it looked like he could have picked a lot of other people.”

 

Bruce looked back at him then, reached to catch Clark’s hand in his. “It made perfect sense, and no one else would have been suitable.”

 

Clark’s thumb rubbed over his knuckles, warming stiff joints. “Anyway, one thing and another, we wound up falling in love for real. Although to tell you the truth, Mrs. Wayne, I was more than halfway there already,” he confessed as Bruce leaned in and kissed the corner of his mouth.

 

“It was a Love Boat cruise. All the passengers were couples. Nygma would have been suspicious if notorious playboy Bruce Wayne showed up by himself.”

 

“You had Cat Grant reveal footage of our secret wedding on _Good Morning Metropolis_.”

 

“It had to look authentic. Nygma’s not an idiot. You’re telling it all wrong.”

 

“Well you tell it then.”

 

“Fine.” Bruce let Clark slip an arm around him and pull him close. It was getting chilly, after all. “Edward Nygma, the Riddler, was running a scam aimed at parting a lot of wealthy people from their money, Mother. I needed someone to play the part of a gullible, naive country bumpkin who’d just fallen off the turnip truck, and the first name that came to mind was…”

 

~*~

“So my being good at solving riddles was completely irrelevant?”

 

Bruce sighed. Again. “It was not irrelevant. It just wasn’t the deciding factor.”

 

Clark cupped his chin, thumb lightly caressing Bruce’s bottom lip. “What was?”

 

“I…” He paused, grumbled, glanced at the graves, lingered on his mother’s. He knew what she’d say. She would look at him and smile, eyes lit up with it, and tell him, _‘Go for it, Bruce, go for it!’_ Granted, the times she had encouraged him with that had been when he was learning to ride a bike and other challenges, but he thought it applied here too.

 

“Bruce?” Those blue eyes were clouded with uncertainty now, and that couldn’t be allowed to stand.

 

Bruce slipped a hand up to curve around Clark’s neck, fingers playing with the curls at his nape. “You weren’t the only one halfway there already,” he confessed and watched those clouds clear, watched Clark light up again. “I thought I needed a reason to get you there, though.”

 

“And asking me out on a date never crossed your mind?”

 

He pulled a face. “I couldn’t imagine you’d say yes.”

 

“Idiot,” Clark murmured. He kissed him on the forehead.

 

“I think that has been established, yes.” He felt a drop of rain plop on his head, tipped his head back to scan the sky. “Looks like the rain’s coming.”

 

Clark nodded. “We’ve got time,” he said with farmboy confidence. He got up, lent a hand to Bruce. “I could fly us to the house.”

 

“Or we could walk.”

 

Clark waved an expansive arm. “After you.” He looked back at the graves. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mrs. Wayne. Mr. Wayne. I’ll take good care of him.”

 

Bruce rolled his eyes again.

 

“I think your mom likes me,” Clark said as they headed off along the well-worn path. “Not sure about your dad.”

 

“He probably thinks you’re an alien gold-digger.” Bruce slung an arm across Clark’s shoulders.

 

Clark slipped an arm around Bruce’s waist as they walked on. “What does my being alien have to do with it?”

 

More fat drops of rain plopped down.

 

 

 

 

_The daisy’s message is one of hope and renewal…_

 

**Author's Note:**

> Learn about the meaning of daisies here: [daisies](http://www.flowermeaning.com/daisy-flower-meaning/)


End file.
